


Transparent

by Guardian Of The Lotus (DistantStorm)



Series: Fictober 2019 [10]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Executor Hideo is a jerk, F/M, Factions, Gen, Lies, Shady Business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 20:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/Guardian%20Of%20The%20Lotus
Summary: Suraya Hawthorne only lies to him about one thing. Zavala puts the pieces togetherWritten for Day 10 of the Fictober 2019 Challenge: "Listen, I can't explain it, you'll have to trust me."





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Suraya Hawthorne only lies to him about one thing.

Until that point, she had been open and honest, committed to working with him. They had gotten to talking about the City and the lands outside of it and he had been curious. How old was she when she stepped into the wilds from the safe harbor of the City? Seventeen, she'd said. His eyes narrowed on her, and she looked away. 

_Lie. _She was younger. 

How long did she prepare? Oh, for a while, she brushed him off. Generalizing to prevent herself from lying to him further because he, she’d learned and learned quick, would know. She’s intelligent, but he’s unlike many she’s dealt with. She kept up with his moves, tried to change the subject.

Zavala let her do it, maneuvered around the conversation skillfully, patient. When they came full circle, as he’d masterfully planned, he asked her one question. 

“Why?”

She plays it off coolly, almost with a Hunter’s sense of comedic self-depreciation. "I wanted to see what was out there. Y'know, just stretch my legs."

"Really?" He asks, interested. Gut churning.

"Yeah."

"There’s more to it than that,” He presses a bit further, touch and go.

She nods. The movement is too fast. She's blinking more. This answer will be flippant and generalized. "What is there to say? There’s a great big world out there, Zavala. The City is only a tiny part of it.”

The Commander does not push her. There is an animal sort of desperation laced into her posture, an anxiety that coils in the darkness of her gaze.

It’s enough intel to form a working theory: Suraya Hawthorne did not leave the Last City entirely by choice.

-/

When she comes into the Farmhouse, he watches her shrink back. Two men in red stand beside him, speaking in hushed tones of the survivors of New Monarchy. They pause, only to look at her with open disdain.

“Is something the matter?” Zavala asks, careful to keep neutrality in his tone.

“Nothing at all,” They reply. After that, they talk softer with her down at the other end of their makeshift command center, and when they leave, he hears one of them say something as they pass her. Even if he hadn’t heard what it was, the tone is soft and scathing.

“What did they say to you?” He asks.

She shakes her head. “Nothing important.”

Zavala coughs, deciding to try and untangle what he can. “It sounded like a slur.”

“It wasn’t.” Lie.

“New Monarchy is safe in a western portion of the City. They have bunkers, supplies, food. Their scouts monitor the flight patterns and do their best to stay hidden. Their casualties seem to be relatively low.”

Suraya nods. “Good.”

“They made the insinuation that they tried to make contact before,” He mentions, when she returns to looking at a map and he’s pretending to check inventory of available munitions.

Tense isn’t the right word to describe her posture. Uneasy or wary are better more appropriate, he thinks. “They did reach out,” She hedges, speaking quietly. 

“And?”

“I offered to setup evac.”

“And?”

“They refused.” She’s looking out the window now. Thinking about how she can escape.

“Why?”

She shakes her head. Does not look at him. She’s hiding something. “You’d be better off asking them. They seemed rather chummy with you.”

She does not speak to him for the rest of the day, and the entirety of the one after that. His gut tingles.

This response is local to New Monarchy. She deals with FWC and Dead Orbit nearly daily, without issue.

-/

When she comes around following her walk in on his briefing by New Monarchy’s field scouts, he tries again, asking her why she left the City.

She walls herself off completely. 

“I need to know, Suraya,” He tries, watching her in earnest. Pleading with her on a personal level rather than professional.

“I already told you.”

“You were lying and we both know it,” Zavala scoffs. “The truth. Please.”

Hawthorne shakes her head, and instead of anger, defensiveness - as he expects - she surprises him. She only sounds tired. “Listen, I can’t explain it.” She closes her eyes. “You’ll have to trust me.”

She does not expect him to stop there. It's clear she's drawing a line before he starts banging on the walls she's drawn around her heart. She underestimates his patience, and clearly is not used to her limits being respected. He has to give in order to get.

It's fair, he thinks. After all, look what she's giving to everyone. She, someone who left the City, who has no desire to return (she'd been honest there), did return in their darkest hour. She's been doing so much good, and fighting so hard to keep them all safe and be a good, inspiring leader.

"Okay," Zavala answers, careful not to let anything that might insinuate irritation bleed into his voice. "I won't pry."

His eyes search hers, and somehow, that crippling anxiety he sees reflected in them is only worsened by his acquiescing. He has some ideas about that, with regards to her. 

She's afraid of making attachments to people, he gathers. She's been alone for a long time. Cooperation, communication, trust… it sounds almost like friendship. Falcon excluded, she does not have companions. She expects to leave or be left - he's not sure which upsets her more - after this war is over. This distance she keeps, this social awkwardness (to an extent), this aloof persona… it's all a defense mechanism.

-/

Months later, Suraya only accepts his offer of a position within the City hierarchy for those she would be serving, guilted by their people's pleading. He does not love the idea that she does it out of guilt, but another leader not obsessed with power is a boon they will always need. 

Their first Consensus meeting falls on a cold, rainy day that reminds him far too much of Towerfall.

Even so, decisions must be made. Tower reconstruction is to be abandoned in lieu of reappropriation of space and resources to a more habitable part of the wall. Whatever could be salvaged, would be salvaged eventually, but the majority of the structure is not safe for exploration much less removal of weighty supplies.

"Next order of business is appointing a new member of our council," He explains to the room. "It was agreed upon that we required a Clan liaison to consult both the Vanguard and City Government with the massive rise in unionization amongst the population in its entirety. Formally, that ambassador would become a member of the Consensus."

"New Monarchy objects," Hideo immediately presses, even though he knows Zavala is not done speaking. "I know who you want, and we do not want that woman's ideas in our City. She is an outsider. She is not needed here."

"And why is that? Your nose still sore?" Lakshmi says, with narrowed optics. Arach Jalal laughs beside her. "I oppose, but not because I'm afraid someone will find out my underhanded dealings," She and the Arach share matching - as much as Lakshmi's build will let her - grins.

“Now, now,” Jalaal croons, “He’s the one who threw her out, so of course he doesn’t want her back in.”

Ikora looks to Zavala, Hideo scoffs but swallows hard, and Cayde smacks his palm on the table because he'd lost control of his motor skills as he'd nodded off. Zavala isn’t sure he’d feel better about things if Hideo lied, trying to deny it. The Executor’s flippancy makes his blood boil.

-/

It's like an avalanche, the way his feelings all seem to roll downhill, landing squarely on his back, dragging him down with them. This is a rarity, that he doesn't know which of his emotions to feel first, only that they're demanding to be felt with a vigor he's not used to.

Normally, he'd will himself to control and then speak. But what comes out is a rolling thunderclap of, "He exiled you!"

"He didn't."

Zavala is beyond uncomfortable. He's furious. Furious the City - his City - failed her. The City he's spent centuries protecting. The City that was torn down by enemies in an instant. 

The City they'd never have been able to reclaim without her.

"Look," She says, sounding tired. How many times has she played this conversation out in her mind, he wonders, "I'd been thinking about leaving, he just forced my hand."

"You weren't even the age of majority. It's unethical. Immoral You might have known what you wanted but you shouldn't have been able to make that choice. You were a child."

"I understand that," Suraya agrees, "But-"

The real issue isn't what's been done. That cannot be changed, it's happened, etched into time without the ability to go back and change it. No, the real issue is something else entirely. 

"Why didn't you tell me? Why lie about it?"

"I am who I am, Zavala," She says, and those deep dark eyes land on him, rooting him to the spot. "I wanted your trust because of what my decisions made me. Not because you felt bad. I'm proud of my choices. Even the dumb ones." Her lips turn into a smile, and how she finds grace in this moment astounds him. He's just so, so- 

"Don't be angry on my behalf," Suraya urges him. It's like something between them shifts, has shifted. They aren't who they were back when this was a war for survival. They are more. "Just don't let him do it to someone else."

"Help me do that," He manages, hoarse, unable to look away from the openness of her gaze. 

She nods, and he sees her usual sarcasm smothered by sincerity. A metaphorical wall between them destroyed. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Thankfully," He admits, equally as honest. Her shoulders come back and her chest rises, as if she's been pulled to full height by an invisible thread. Confident. 

It strikes pride into his chest to be the one to make her feel this way. He endeavors to do it more often.


End file.
